In emergency management, as in other time sensitive activities, timely and accurate information is vital for use in allocating resources as well as achieving other emergency management priorities such as field assessment and analysis. Clearly, in the hours immediately following a disaster there is an urgent need for accurate information to manage the relief effort. As used herein, a disaster includes natural disasters such as hurricanes, fires, earthquakes or famine or man-made disasters such as war or terrorism. When such disasters occur, the scope of the damage is generally geographically dispersed and may affect vast numbers of people and extensive damage to infrastructure. However, some disasters may be localized to smaller areas or structures. In the time period immediately following the disaster, local resources such as police, fire protection and heath care are often inadequate to respond to all of the problems related to the disaster, especially when the extent of damage is widely dispersed. Often, outside resources are required to supplement local resources and, since the disaster may be geographically widespread, it is often difficult to determine how best to allocate these outside resources. Moreover, the status of potential victims within the disaster-affected area is difficult to determine.
When a disaster occurs, it is common practice to establish an Emergency Management Center (EMC) in the area hit by the disaster to collect information regarding the damage and manage the allocation of outside resources. When the disaster is widespread, such as occurs after a hurricane or earthquake, several EMCs are established throughout the region so coordinating the aid requests and efficiently allocating resources becomes a major and complicated task. These EMCs must communicate with established EMCs operated by local, state and federal agencies tasked to deal with such disasters. In addition to the EMC, individuals affected by the disaster may need to acquire information regarding their relatives or personal possessions such as a house or boat located in the disaster area.
Often, however, any information that arrives at the EMC is anecdotal, resulting in improper allocation of scarce resources. Indeed, after a major disaster a period of days may pass before a clear picture of the extent and level of damage begins to form at the EMC. In the meantime, crucial decisions on resource allocation are made with only limited information. During the time period immediately following the disaster, individuals may clog the telephone network and harass officials at the EMC and elsewhere for information relating to their personal concerns. There is a great need to determine and provide timely and accurate information to individuals in an automatic manner so that EMC officials are free to concentrate on coordinating disaster relief.
Unfortunately, the EMC that often sends in the first resource requests is the area least affected by disaster while EMCs located in geographical areas with heavy damage are typically overwhelmed and slow to assess the damage, as the emergency response personnel are occupied responding to immediate lifesaving tasks. Many times EMCs in heavily damaged areas are simply unable to determine what resources are required. Often the damage to the infrastructure, such as by way of example, highways, power transmission grids, communication lines, water supply, condition of medical facilities, public buildings, etc., is so heavily damaged that it is difficult to even establish communication between EMCs to request assistance. Without accurate and timely information, there is a high risk of improperly allocating scarce resources.
When a large hurricane makes landfall, by way of illustrative example, up to forty-eight hours may pass before areas hard hit by the storm are able to re-establish communications. During this period there may be little accurate information available to the EMC as to the extent of the damage, or the exact resources that are required. Because of this information void at the central EMC during the period immediately following the disaster, it is difficult to provide adequate resources in a timely manner. To overcome the information void, Federal Emergency Management Association (FEMA) agents use portable information and communication devices, such as the GSC100 manufactured by Magellan, Inc., to relay information from established emergency locations to the EMC. This vital information, sent via a satellite communication system, includes the functional status of hospitals, the extent of property damage, the state of communications networks, and the condition of other infrastructure in the area affected by the disaster. Thus, the remote emergency centers are able to immediately begin collecting damage information through observation. The agents are able to observe downed bridges, blocked roads, destroyed buildings and numerous other items vital to accurate field assessment and analysis.
A problem with relying on FEMA agents to provide status information is that they must first be placed in the disaster-affected area before they can begin reporting the extent of the damage caused by the disaster. The delays in receiving reports of status may be serious, especially when decisions regarding the allocation of scarce resources must be made almost immediately after the disaster strikes. It would be much quicker and more efficient to contact someone who was in the area when the disaster occurred and is still in the area. Unfortunately, because primary communication networks may be either incapacitated by the disaster or jammed due to increased usage, contacting someone within a disaster-affected area is not an easy task.